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Sunday, July 18, 2010

Stephenie Meyer talks about Freaky Fred

Letters to Twilight: Alright, so we are going to start off a little funny. So, there is this game that people play and you get three names and it is called, “Eff, Kill, Marry”. We are going to do the “Eclipse” version called “Hunt, Leg-Hitch, Imprint”. So, we are going to give you three names and you are going to choose which one.

Stephenie: Okay, okay.

Letters to Twilight: So, lets start out with the Holy Trinity of Edward, Jacob and Bella.

Stephenie: No, see I can’t.

(Everyone laughs)

Stephenie: …because no matter what I say, I am screwed. That’s why, and I love all the kids. They are great. So, I would have to say Imprint for all of them.

Twilight Series Theories: Aw.

Twilight Source: That’s sweet.

Stephenie: Isn’t that a cool answer?

Letters to Twilight: It is.

Stephenie: I feel so shut down right now. (laughs)

Letters to Twilight: Well, could we do “Bree Tanner” characters? Diego, Fred and Riley.

Stephenie: Well, you know that’s hard too. The obvious choice would be to hunt Riley after you read the book. But now that Xavier has played him…

Letters to Twilight: Oh we don’t care who plays him.

Stephenie: You would have to hunt Riley. You see, when he starts out, he is not a bad person when she first finds him. But, she makes him into a really bad person. I guess I would have to leg hitch Diego, and Imprint with Fred because I love Fred.

Twilight Series Theories: Yes. That was the biggest response we got from the fans.

Stephenie: And, you see Fred was such an accidental character. I love accidental characters. I knew that she was going to have, kind of, a romance there. But, he just came out of the blue. It was so interesting. Although, it killed me when the Spanish publisher put out a little synopsis of the story that was really badly translated and not only did they say that it was Riley who had a talent, but the talent was smell related. And I was like, “Oh my gosh!” I was horrified! I said “No, no that’s wrong”. Then I was worried that people were gonna read about Fred and in their heads think it was a smell thing. And I thought, “No”.

Letters to Twilight: No, we didn’t think that at all.

Twifans: No.

Twilight Source: Freaky Fred’s power is that he gives off that repulsion. How do you come up with the powers for vampires? What is in the water in Arizona ?

(Everyone laughs)

Twilight Source: I really want to know because we were talking about this a lot and we were thinking.

Stephenie: Well, anytime you start doing a fantasy, it slowly starts to shift away all the rules. And anyone you read, do you read Jasper Fforde? Go read Jasper Fforde! I am reading “Shades of Grey” right now. His imagination is unreal. But I think that when you take away the boundaries you start thinking that way. Fred is actually not that too far off. He is really related to what Jasper can do. He has an ability to affect how your body feels. And his is very specific. It is kind of like the difference between Jane and Kate. He has one thing he can do, whereas Jasper has the whole range.

Twilight Source: I never thought of it that way.

Stephenie: It is really related to that classification of talent.

Twilight Series Theories: Okay, so that leads into this question perfectly.

Stephenie: Excellent.

Twilight Series Theories: What is it about his human characteristics or his trait that caused him to have that ability when he is a vampire?

Stephenie: I see it as Fred’s backstory. He is in college, a little bit older like Riley and I see him as being – he is beautiful now because that is what happens, but him as being kind of a science nerd. Sort of quiet and sort of not liking other people’s attention. And of course when you live in a room full of newborns, that’s gonna be an even stronger need. So him, having that need to not be seen manifested in that way. And of course that makes him kind of cool.

Twilight Series Theories: Well, it is weird because he has got this ability to make people feel so repelled that they are nauseated. I think that is where they got the smell thing from.

Stephenie: I think so, but for me it was like completely a feeling in your gut. It wasn’t really a mental thing, more like a visceral and really, really potent. When you have to learn fast when you are in a group like that and so he is in an elevated learning program and he gets good really quickly. And, he is really, really smart. I liked to think about the newborns and what it would be like to be so unable to focus and all the time all you can think about is this driving need that you have and you are barely human. But if you can stop and slow down, you are able to think and you are really bright actually and he is able to do that on his own which makes him unique and special.

Twilight Series Theories: Thanks!

Twifans: This is one of those questions if you had pictured in your mind or maybe you thought of this beyond your mind but does Edward ever go to find Fred?

Stephenie: If I were to go ahead with it, he would definitely come up again. After his character sort of warmed he would fit into a rightly place. I don’t see Edward actively seeking him out. Having the knowledge he had gotten from Bree he realizes that Fred probably wouldn’t appreciate that pretty much, but I do see them crossing paths. I was really relieved in a way, I didn’t see anybody surviving. And so as Fred started developing it was really a relief to let someone survive and for someone you care about.

Twilight Series Theories: I just loved the introduction to the book that you did say “I was writing this and I did have a hard time that I made this decision before…” That helped me through.

Stephenie: By the end, you know, when I first started out I didn’t even think about it, I was thinking “this will be cool” it was all about the mechanics of it. And then when you start like “I have to kill her”. On set it was crazy because Jodelle is teeny. She is this little – actually she looked a little younger even though she is fifteen. My Bree in the book was grown up looking because she had a hard life but Jodelle did a really good job. They cut a scene of hers where I really think she captured her. I hope it makes it on the DVD. But, then you have Daniel Cudmore, who is – you can’t even tell in the movies but he is a monster!

Twilight Series Theories: And beautiful. (laughs)

Stephenie: He is so properly proportionate so that if you took a normal six-foot person and you blew them up. He is just so big. I remember the first time I met him I asked him like an idiot “How tall are you?”

(Everyone laughs)

Stephenie: The first time I met him, he was in the full Volturi garb with his eyes. It was impressive. So he was coming over to rip up the little girl and the difference between them was really – it made me sad. And you watch it all day because you shoot the scene in fourteen different ways all day long so they keep killing her over and over again.

Twilight Source: You know, I was saying this to Matt before and I feel like the fact that Bree’s life, how tragic it is in the fact that she dies, is a really juxtaposition to the series that we see from Bella’s perspective. Because, you always hear Edward saying, “This is a really tough life and this is not something that you want to be”.

Stephenie: And no one ever believes him.

Twilight Source: Exactly! Because you see it from Bella’s perspective of the Cullens are beautiful. But, Bree shows that he is right in a lot of ways. It was obviously tragic to see her die, I fell in love with her too. But you see that Edward’s perspective is vindicated in a lot of ways.

Stephenie: And you get to see Jasper as he hadn’t been, as good at what he does.

Twilight Source: Exactly.

Stephenie: When you are created for a reason that has nothing to do with your well being and serving someone else’s purpose and how used they are, they have no idea and are doomed from the start, it is just really sad.

Twilight Source: Which is why I just love the scene where Jasper and Bree, towards the end, where it is really intense because obviously it is coming full circle for Jasper in a lot of ways.

Stephenie: It was more focused on Edward and her connection. Which when I was writing it the first time it was all Bella and you are in that mode and you are so oblivious to a lot of things but when the line was really – it was really cool – I was writing it through and I had realized “hey Edward is gonna know everything she is thinking” so how are we going to do this? And his line was starting to play in to everything. That final line, I was getting chills.

Twilight Series Theories: I was too!

(laughing)

Twilight Source: Who was he talking to!?

Stephenie: He was talking to both of them. When I wrote it for Bella it was absolutely him talking to her, but then when I wrote this one, I thought “he was talking to Bree. Oh my gosh”, and when he was trying to save her I could feel his – so much more than when it was just “don’t do this horrible thing”, but then he was really trying to save her specifically and knew what a good person she was and I was just like “Aw”. And he couldn’t do anything. Stupid Jane!